https://news.yahoo.com/opinion-texas-wants-citizens-enforce-180528590.html

Republicans have zero respect for the rule of law. This new Texas law bans abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected – about 6 weeks into gestation. That is before many women even know that they are pregnant. The law of the land established by SCOTUS in Roe Vs. Wade and other cases is that such bans are Unconstitutional until about 24 weeks.

But wait, there is more. As a gimmick to avoid following the law, the state will not enforce the ban. Instead, it leaves the enforcement to private law suits by ANYBODY and will pay a $10,000 bounty to ANYONE who successfully sues anyone who provides, helps, counsels or encourages an abortion after 6 weeks.

I would like to say that you can not make this stuff up, but this is reality. This is how anti-woman, anti-science (heartbeat, really?) Republicans really are.

Biden ousts independent SS Administrator

One of the good things that came from Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich’s cooperation after the 1994 election was that the Social Security Administration was removed from HHS and made an independent agency whose director had a 6 year term and could be fired only for malfeasance. 

But that reform is over. At the request of 3 Democrat Senators, Commissioner Andrew Saul was removed, with no explanation given. The Senators were acting on complaints from lawyers representing SSI Disability recipients who were angered that Saul was conducting ongoing reviews, as required by law, to determine if they were still qualified as disabled. Since 2008, SSI Disability had become a de facto welfare program abused by millions with questionable status. The fund was rapidly running out of money and Saul was appointed to restore the Disability system to solvency by limiting false claims. 

Following the law is now cause for dismissal. So much for independent, non-partisan agencies.

Source: Unlimited Hangout.

This article tells an origins story you may not have heard. The details look about right to me for various reasons, but I expect the substance will be hard for many to take seriously.

The substance of the story is that Big Tech as we know it today was created by the military-industrial complex. This may or may not be a good thing, but it is something more people should know about.

Source: The Economic Collapse.

I agree with the writer that it is profoundly irresponsible to describe one’s political opponents as a “national security threat.” I recommend that people who wish to be considered sane avoid doing so.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/07/15/arizona-audit-senate-seek-more-maricopa-county-election-records/7973154002/

Now it’s is really a case of jack-booted state thugs demanding answers about how people voted. Welcome to what a right wing “Amerika” would look like.

And the right wing nuts are getting wadded up panties over bringing vaccines to the people. The phony Cawthorn is spreading lies about people losing guns and Bibles to the local volunteers trying so hard to save lives. What would he say about demanding voter information?

Source: The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers placed a sensor array in a patient’s brain and were able “to decode full sentences as the participant attempted to say them.”

This is fascinating stuff, but my attention goes to the name of the research sponsor: Facebook.

Speculations of the tinfoil hat variety are irresistible. Once it becomes possible to decode brain waves into information, encoding information into brain waves should also become possible. Will Facebook get the patent on that?

Conversations with Tyler.

Not exactly Dean Moriarty (“On the Road”) but not exactly not, either.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/563221-shocking-poll-finds-many-americans-now-want-to

South and parts of West for Republicans, Northeast and West Coast for Democrats. Midwest a bit tricky, but doable. Make it amicable, establish trade deals, border controls and see what happens.

A fly in the oil could be global warming and drought. Louisiana might be a tough place to live in 50 years from sea rise and tropical diseases. Arizona could be uninhabitable from heat and lack of water. But those folks won’t have Biden to kick around anymore.

One twist is that as climate change heats up, droughts turn to desertification, the new nation may send refugees to the North. Will they be accepted at the border?

The death of climate activism

WSJ article. The gist is that across the developed world, the easy carbon reductions have been made. Further reductions in the west will be prohibitively expensive for very little added benefit. At the same time, with China, India and the developing world having carbon emissions per unit of GDP at ten times the Western world, they are already backing off on their efforts. Further sacrifice in the West won’t make any difference.

Voters across the West are rebelling at further costs for no benefits. The alarmists, of course, don’t see it, but the war on fossil fuels is over, and fossil fuels won.